At Issue - Will Carney’s meeting with Trump change anything?

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Will Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump change anything with for the Canada-U.S. relationship? Andrew Scheer steps up for the Conservatives as interim Opposition leader in the House. And, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith re-ignites the sovereignty debate. Rosemary Barton hosts Chantal Hébert, Althia Raj and Aaron Wherry

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Thursday May 8th. At Issue, the podcast edition for Thursday, May 8th. At Issue tonight, Trump and Carney sit down for their first face-to-face meeting. It was a very constructive meeting. I feel better about the relations. The president didn't back down on his comments on the 51st date. It's not for sale, it won't be for sale ever. But the opportunity is in the partnership and what we can build together. But never say never. So how did the prime minister do in that first meeting with the president?

And what will this mean for relations between the two countries? I'm Rosemary Barton. Here to break it down tonight, Chantelle Baer, Althea Raj, and in for Andrew Coyne, Erin Weary. Nice to see everybody. Let's just start with what how we thought the prime minister did in this meeting and then we can talk about what's next and the substance. But Chantel, what did you make of how the prime minister

dealt with a very strange room and a president who was talking a lot and questioning Canada's sovereignty? What did you make of how he did? Doesn't really matter that he was talking a lot, often off topic, and as much as Mark Carney managed to get this line in. And there were people who believed that the worst thing that could happen is if the 51st state issue was raised, but actually no. The good news is that it was raised and that it was put down. I think there is a consensus that Mark Carney did well, but I also think a lot of voters

were reassured by what they saw. This is someone who got elected prime minister with very little time to kick the tires of who he is. And that's anecdotal, but my experience has been that a lot of people felt reassured by what they saw. That he sold who he was and he delivered, at least in this first meeting. Yeah, Althea? I think how you think Mark Carney did depends kind of on how deep your partisan stripes are. If you are an ardent conservative you probably saw Mark Carney praised the president as a transformational president and thought, well this isn't really how you, Mark Carney, campaigned. If you were a liberal, you probably thought he did phenomenally well. I think what's evident is that the prime minister succeeded

in doing what he needed to do was to reset the relationship. We saw President Trump talk very dismissively about Christia Freeland, about the former prime minister. And then after the meeting was over, the White House issued a video where they basically gave Mark Kearney the star treatment. And you can tell from the video, and then you look back at the meeting and you realize the president has deep respect for Mark Kearney and wants to be liked by Mark Kearney. And I think that's why you saw words like friendship come out from the president.

I think we've often talked about the president as being someone who looks up to strong men. And I think Mr. Kearney's reputation as an economist and kind of a star on the global stage has really done wonders to reset the Canadian relationship, because Mr. Trump seems to really respect Mr. Kearney. Now, how that translated into gains for Canada, that hasn't happened yet and we will wait and see.

But clearly, if objective one was to reset the relationship on a positive tone, that was achieved. Yeah, and in challenging circumstances, Aaron, I think Chantel is right. If the president hadn't said the 51st state thing, I don't know if the prime minister would have had to raise it himself just to deliver that line, but he didn't have to wait. He managed to get that in. Aaron?

Aaron Ross Yeah. The President got a lot of things in those 30 minutes. I mean, I think it's worth emphasizing just how strange that whole setting is, this idea. I mean, I think it's even saying too much to call it a meeting. It's really a reality show what these kind of what are supposed to be photo ops essentially in the Oval Office have become these sort of performances. And for Carney to have gotten through that without you know an obvious major misstep I think is a victory. I think he got the point across that he wanted to get across. I think that's probably what you know Canadians at home wanted to hear. I think it sort of backed up the idea that he's being the adult in the room.

But I think Justin Trudeau's first trip to the White House was also a success, or considered a success, and there was a time when Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump seemed to get along just fine, and it didn't end up that well. So I think there's just a long way to go on this, but as far as surviving that first spectacle, I think there's just a long way to go on this. But as far as surviving

that first spectacle, I think Mark Carney did fine. So let's talk about then where it goes from here and sort of the substance of what happened in the meeting behind closed doors, where there was an agreement to keep talking about the next steps for a trade deal, an agreement for the president to come to Canada and then according to some reporting we did, conversations around lots of other things where the president seemed to want to hear what the prime minister had to say on anything from Ukraine to Russia to Iran. What has to happen now to make sure that this isn't just a moment in the Oval Office for the Prime Minister that this turns into something successful for the country.

Chantal. It's complicated. And we saw that with the so-called UK definitive deal today, which is basically a framework to talk about things and some tariffs. So an excuse to bring tariffs down. and some tariffs, so an excuse to bring tariffs down. The first test is, yes, Donald Trump is going to show up for the G7, presumably under the conditions set by Canada, which is President Zelensky will be there, hence the conversation on the larger stage,

but there are two schools of thought on this. One, you negotiate quickly a deal that, I don't know, preserves the essential. And maybe you can, and maybe Donald Trump respects it. I don't know that. Or you wait for more pain to set in in the U.S. before you really want to have a serious talk about issues like that because pain is coming It hasn't come yet. It's coming here. It's coming there. So That meeting leaves both options open to the Canadian government

I believe and the Prime Minister has said we're not gonna we're in no hurry We will take the time it takes to do this. So that might be the point there, Althea. Well, in terms of the framework for Kuzma, they don't really need to hit reset until next year. And I thought the language that the president used with regard to the trade deal was quite interesting. Once he said he needed to be better and have some changes, but then he also praised the deal.

So it leaves the door open as to what kind of change, drastic change, or just some fine-tuning. I mean, a lot of people will argue that Kuzma is not a huge change from NAFTA, and in fact, we got a better deal out of it than the Americans did. I don't know where that goes. I think what's clear is that Mark Carney wants to have a relationship with Donald Trump, and they want to be able to continue to talk, whether it's the prime minister feeling like he has the president's ear on a whole number of topics, or he's kind of like leaving a little bit of crumbs for us to follow.

Like he talked a lot about the fentanyl tariffs. So perhaps there's going to be some lot about the fentanyl tariffs. So perhaps there's going to be some movement on the fentanyl tariffs. How quickly the rest of the stuff gets done, I don't know. But I think one question that needs to be asked to the government is like, if the president doesn't respect the agreement that he himself negotiated, what makes us think that the president

would respect a new agreement? I feel like we've never really satisfactorily had an answer to that question. From either side, the White House or the prime minister's office. Last word to you, Aaron. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things going on here, right?

One is there are obviously or apparently going to be some kind of negotiations, but we really don't know what's on the table or what the United States is even looking for. Going back to that Oval Office performance, one of our colleagues at Radio Canada asked what he was looking for in terms of concessions, and he said friendship. That's obviously not on the table, I don't think. I think it's important to note that the Prime Minister still came out of that meeting saying, we are in the process of redefining our relationship.

And I think that goes a bit to what Althea is saying in that, you know, we can't assume whatever agreement they come to is going to last very long. And if Mark Carney was making a pitch to the electorate in the last election, it was really about, you know, not one meeting in the Oval Office. It was dealing with these immediate negotiations and then also dealing with the major sort of domestic and international changes that Canada needs to make when the relationship with the United States is so changed. Okay, got to leave it there for tonight. That is that issue on the national tonight, but we're going to continue this conversation. Talk about the Conservatives, interim leader and Alberta sovereignty. You can catch those conversations on our full at issue on the national tonight but we're gonna continue this conversation talk about the Conservatives interim leader and Alberta sovereignty you can

catch those conversations on our full at issue on YouTube or on the podcast at issue conservative leadership Pierre Poiliev is staying as leader and reflecting on his party's loss. Obviously we didn't come out on top and that's disappointing but there is a lot to be thankful for. With the leader now fighting for a seat in the House, conservatives have appointed an interim leader. This is a parliamentary role until Pierre Poliov has a seat again. I'll just be taking over some of the duties that require somebody to have a seat. So how are conservatives reflecting on their loss? I'll just be taking over some of the duties that require somebody to have a seat. So how are conservatives reflecting on their loss?

What will Andrew Scheer as a leader inside the House of Commons mean for the party? Here to break that down, Chantal, Althea and Aaron. Althea, why don't you start us off. Let's just start on what you made of sort of some of the reflections of Pierre Poiliev and what he did this week to try and make sure that the party is shored up around him and that he has the next sort of steps in place? Well, he's not wrong to say that under any scenario, previously thought of scenario, that the conservative with 40 plus percent of the vote would have been aiming for a majority

conservative government and that he needs to find one million more votes if we assumed that the NDP will not be a strong player in the next election and that it is a battle between two political parties. The question is how to go about finding those one million votes and there are very different views within the conservative caucus especially depending on where you are regionally. What happened this week is that the team around the leader, which does not want to see a lot of change, wanted Andrew Scheer, the former leader, the former speaker of the House, to take over from Pierre Poilieff basically as a seat warmer because he is not threatening

to Mr. Poiliev. And nobody, aside from John Brossard, held up their hand. Melissa Lantzman often talked about as a potential leadership candidate, did not put up her hand. And interestingly, I will say, the results of the vote were not made public to caucus, which is very unusual, because usually they do tell you. So we don't know if it was a tight vote or if Mr. Shear won in a landslide. It's clear that they leaned heavily on the new MPs to convince them to select Andrew Shear. But what's happening, I think, within, well, I think I know, is that you have siloed conversations basically. There are a lot of MPs who feel like Pierre Poliev was a drag for them at the polls, but also know that he was able to reach, especially young people, a whole new swath

of conservative voters. And the challenge is really, how do you keep those people motivated and engaged for the next few years, while also trying to court the 50 plus crowd who voted en masse for Mark Carney, the progressive conservatives out out east, how do you bring them all into the tent with one unifying message? That's a big challenge and Mr. Plymouth seems to be in the clear for the next few months, but Christmas might be a tough break in a year from now, who knows. Yeah, Chateau. Yes, months is a good way to put the timeline. I is a good way to put the timeline. I guess you could use the same rhetoric if you were a liberal to say, I can't believe that we would get this share of the vote and not win a majority government,

which is what happened. Second, the assumption that the NDP will be as weak in two or four years is not something that you should bet your mortgage on. Because who knows? But finally, I think what happened this week was a major power shift. Yes, they wouldn't give the score of the vote as to who voted for Scheer versus someone else. But what we do know is that by a margin of 3 to 1, they voted to put a leash on their leader by giving themselves the power to fire him. And that power that they granted themselves, I think the vote was something like around 100 to 29 in favor of giving Caucus the power to fire the leader, which has been used to fire Aaron O'Toole.

That power doesn't go away for the entirety of the next parliament. And that changes the relationship between the leader and his caucus in a major way. And that caucus is full of skeptics. Yeah, that under the Reform Act, of course. And what that does too, I think, is to your point, it allows MPs who felt like, and we've talked about it before, like there was a carrot in order to keep them in line and not talking to media and other people.

There's nothing now. They have, yeah, it's fascinating. They have power. Yeah, they have power. The power is shift. For the first time in a while. They have power. Yeah, they have power. The power is shift. For the first time in a while. Yeah. Aaron.

Yeah, I think a lot depends on how the conservatives read this result. Whether they look at this and say, we were that close to winning and the liberals only won because of a sort of once in a lifetime convergence of events. Or whether they look at what just happened and say that's as good as it's going to get for Pierre Poliev, that that's as high as he could get to. I keep coming back to the fact that they took him out of the ads in the last week and that just seems like such a significant undercutting of the idea of him as their leader. I just don't know, you know, the other part of that,

then you would say, well, you know, maybe Pierre Poliev needs to change his approach or his style or his offer. And I just don't know, A, whether Pierre Poliev wants to change, and then B, whether the public would accept him changing. And so, I don't envy the position they're in. It's, you know, as Althea says, they won, you know,

north of 40 percent. It's an incredible result in almost every way except for the most important way. And where they go from here, I think, is a pivotal decision for them and for this sort of federal political scene, but it's not an easy decision. It also, it does, there is a question, I think, to Aaron's point, Althea, about did they win that much in spite of their leader or did he contribute to it and how, I think would be the question some people in caucus would want an answer to as well.

I think they overwhelmingly agree that he contributed to that win. I mean, he brought, he consolidated the movement. He engaged young people on social media. The PPC vote that completely collapsed went to the conservative. All the inroads that they have spent the last year doing with unionized, especially private union workers that left the NDP in droves and went to the conservative party, that is Pierre Poilier's success. The problem is his tone was maybe fine with Justin Trudeau, but not matched when you have Mark Carney, who's kind of this calm, boring type person,

who's not giving you lots to gravitate. And a lot of older people who are doing quite well at the moment and don't have the financial anxieties that younger people are feeling, felt safety and comfort in Mark Carney, and they thought Pierre Poliev was too radical. How to bridge that together is the challenge. And how to get women back too as well,

because that was the other problem for Pierre Poliev. Yeah, especially older women. But I would say, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, especially older women. Yeah. But I would say- Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. Last word to you, Chantal. But this isn't a government elected by baby boomers. It goes beyond that. It's a government elected by Quebecers.

It's a government elected by progressive new Democrats. And yes, I totally agree that Pierre Poiliev brought votes, but he also repelled votes. And one of the reasons he lost is he repelled women's votes, but also Quebec votes. And that's his creation. He also lost because he did not build an economic team. He did not build bridges to premiers who are conservative. There are things that happened that are his own fault and his own lack of preparation or his arrogance in believing that he had this in the back and didn't need a team. But to say circumstances just made him not win that if the conservatives go there, they may be in for a bad surprise

if the NDP comes back and brings back some of its votes in a few years. Okay, we're going to take a short break here. When we come back though, we'll talk about the threats of Alberta separatism and how other political leaders are responding to that. That's next. At issue, Alberta separatism. Premier Danielle Smith has made it easier for Albertans to call for a referendum on sovereignty, though she says she does not support it. Do you have the mandate to open such a door to Alberta separating from the rest of Canada? Yeah, I don't have a mandate and my party doesn't support that.

So what does the Alberta government want from this? What are they trying to show the rest of the country? Let's bring everyone back. Chantal, Althea and Erin, I don't even, I don't know who to throw this at first, frankly. It's, listen, if Alberta and people in Alberta are feeling frustrated enough to consider this, that is something that the rest of the country should pay attention to. I'm trying to understand the politics around it and whether there is something here that that the Premier is trying to tap into, whether this is a risk for the Prime Minister. Chantel, what do you make of it?

I don't cover Alberta politics. I know quite a bit about referendums. Alberto politics. I know quite a bit about referendums. And I'm curious, so is Danielle Smith saying that she would campaign against secession in a referendum that her government would authorize? And what would that do to her party if she's trying to keep it united? Because clearly, support for this idea comes from within the conservative movement. So what does it do to this premier? Second, if you're going to have a referendum on creating a separate country or annexing yourself to the US, I'm not sure 29 or 30 percent in the polls is a great basis to start it from. What happens if the answer is no?

Does it weaken your position in the Federation? I mean, these are all things that some of us spent a lifetime in journalism covering. I'm not even mentioning First Nations, basically saying, you can't do this. We're not going anywhere. So it looks like an interesting thing to say, but in the end, it stands to divide the party that got her to government in a fundamental way. bit Althea, not just about allowing some frustration to be expressed by Albertans, which is fair, but to make sure that she avoids the fate of Jason Kenney.

Well, that would be a little cynical now, wouldn't it be, Rosemary? Me? I think absolutely that is true. There are members of her own caucus who would absolutely support this. But I do think there are people in Alberta and Saskatchewan who really do feel that they've been not heard by Ottawa and they would be best to go on their own, and she's giving voice to that. It's a risky strategy, but it's also a strategy that allows her to distract from, frankly,

the problems that her government is having in Alberta. To kind of bring it back to the federal picture, I think, you know, probably nobody was happier to see Mark Carney and the conservative family win. Was it last week? I can't remember. Two weeks ago. Just last week. It's a blur.

Then Daniel Smith gives her something to run against. And some of the, you know, demands that she put forward in a speech earlier this week are a little crazy. Like a province demanding access to tidewater on the west, on the north, and on the east. If you secede and you're your own country, you can't force another country to give you access to tidewater. So it makes no like coherent logical sense,

but it's not meant to. It's meant to make emotional sense. And a lot of people will respond to it in that way. Yeah, Aaron. Yeah, I think this is very reminiscent of former UK Prime Minister David Cameron calling a Brexit referendum as an attempt to sort of deal with intra-party issues.

And even though he opposed Brexit, the voters went another way, and the UK is years later still dealing with the ramifications of what he did. On the actual substance of what she's demanding, I think as Althea says, she's making some pretty heavy demands. Not only the guaranteed access, but you know, also basically asking the federal

government to abandon most of its policies meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including the industrial carbon price, which a year ago she seemed to support. I don't know that there's a world where Mark Carney can satisfy her demands, but I suspect he now has to figure out a way to look reasonable and to make a compromise and to offer something. I just don't know how she'll respond to that and how Albertans will respond to whatever the federal government can offer and to what she's doing. Okay, got to leave it there. I suspect we'll talk about this again at some point. Thank you all, that was great. That's at issue for this week. What do you think of Alberta threatening separation?

How did the Prime Minister handle Donald Trump? Let us know. Send us an email at ask at cbc.ca and you can catch me on Rosemary Barton Live Sundays at 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll be back in your podcast feeds next week. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, We'll be back in your podcast feeds next week. Thanks for listening.